LL Cool J coming out of retirement "I'm gonna massacre the rap game!!!"

[OnlyInCalifornia]

Said it before and I'll say it again. He's a legend. His place in Hip Hop is cemented. He has made timeless music and that won't change......

But he isn't going to 'ravage' anything except for the pretty solid nostalgic memory people have of him. Shouts to @smokeurobinson because LL already did this once to a bunch of people, aint happening again.

 

[Columbo]

I bet they'll be some fire songs

 

[winb83]

People in rap have not dropped like 7 classic, genre defining albums like the Rolling Stones either, sold 200M WW, dropped several of the biggest classic hit songs of all times over 20 years etc. No rappers are from the era where pop culture was defined either. Rock bands from the 90s are not booming like that either. Let's not forget that rock is by far the biggest genre too, without having anything boomin on the billboards.

So is it really about hiphop? Or is it about the era from which these guys are and/or the greatness they achieved.

No rappers have achieved that level of greatness, but we have dudes like Dr. Dre headlining Coachella and could probably put together a big tour. Dudes like Jay-z and Eminem will do this too, as long as they sound good. I don't know why people just reach a super simple conclusion about it being about rap, when there's several factors explaining this.

Rap is a trendy genre of music. As a rapper you're lucky to stay on top for 3-5 years before the audience moves on. An Artist like 50 Cent who once ruled the game will struggle to go gold now. An artist like Nelly who at one point sold millions is now basically ignored.


Rappers can't achieve that level of greatness because they're rappers not because they don't make great music. The music audience as a whole doesn't love rap. There's a small section that likes it and when rap does break into the mainstream it's for a song or two then its the artist get relegated back to that small section. I know many people who don't like rap, won't listen to it, and don't respect it as a genre of music. Very few of the legends of rap are considered legends in music in general. It's not because they don't make genre defining music it's because the genre they define isn't really respected as a whole outside small circles.